Two brief sentences from the conclusion, starting on page 23 say it all for me:

“Citizens can be the shock troops of democracy. Properly deployed, their local knowledge, wisdom, commitment, authority, even rectitude can can address wicked failures of legitimacy, justice, and effectiveness in representative and bureaucratic institutions.”

“Reaping (indeed perceiving) these pragmatic benefits for democracy, however, requires a footloose analytic approach that jettisons preconceptions about what participatory democracy should look like and what it should do in favor of a searching examination of the actual forms and contributions of participation.”

Currently we are recycling mechanisms of approaching citizens and pretending they are new and open. Real change will require real changes.

Earlier posts

Earlier posts

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About me

The blogger is Mick Phythian, a Research Associate at De Montfort University in Leicester, U.K. and former ICT Manager at Ryedale District Council in North Yorkshire, England. He was also a founder member of the Local CIO Council and regional Chair of Socitm.

Any opinions expressed on this weblog are purely those of the author.

He is not the Great Emancipator! The Great Emancipator was President Abraham Lincoln. The blog is so-called because some people perceive e-government, transformational government or, heaven forbid, government to be the emancipator of us all...